Bristol-based Agent Online says it wants to put the power back in the hands of independent mortgage brokers who often lose out to corporate estate agency in-house teams.

An online estate agent is claiming to have turned the financial services referral system on its head after revealing that it is to pay mortgage brokers £500 to refer its property sales service.

Bristol-based but national firm Agent Online offers an online-only £995 service to sell homes and currently has 61 homes for sale listed on Rightmove.

Its founder Dominic Toller says the company wants to disrupt the current way larger estate agents and corporates refer clients to their in-house mortgage teams by offering independent brokers a fee when they recommend Agent Online.

Toller (left) said he believed his company was the first of its kind to offer such a deal to mortgage brokers whom he wants to put at the forefront of the property sales process.

“Consumers like and trust their mortgage broker and our vision is to become the preferred choice of estate agent for brokers’ vendor and buy-to-let clients,” he told Mortgage Introducer.

Mortgage brokers are to pay Agent Online £19.95 a month to use its platform but are to receive a minimum £500 referral fee taken out of its average post-sales completion fee of £795, plus

75% of anything over that if the sales commission is higher. The online agency claims that ‘100s’ of brokers have already signed up.

The announcement comes on the same day that the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team has warned that agents who are paid referral fees such as this but who are not transparent about them are likely to face criminal prosecution.